This text is an argument for a view of the posthuman which is more networked. In this sense it continues the development from Hayles text “Toward embodied virtuality” where she was arguing for a collective sense of identity. Embodiment was a key issue of this earlier text and “a recognition that agency is always relational and distributed” and she viewed “cognition as embodied throughout human flesh and extended into the social and technological environment”

This text is a continuation of the previous text:

“At issue now (and in the past) are distributed cultural cognitions embodied both in people and their technologies.” (p.160).

She is introducing a fourth stage in her history of cybernetics which she calls “the Regime of Computation”. Central to this age is the global phenomenon of the “cognisphere”: “the globally interconnected cognitive systems in which humans are increasingly embedded” (p. 161)

Positive effects of the cognisphere:

- increased communication
- access to databases around the world
- communal knowledge-building through wikipedias and other data collection projects
- networking

Changes in subjectivity through the cognisphere:

- movement from deep attention to hyperattention
- dustributed cognitive systems that include human and non-human actors
- a dispersed sense of self
- artificial coginitive systems help to preserve and extend human awareness

Humans, animals and intelligent machines are more tightly bound together than ever.

Hayles believe that by using metaphors, such as “The regime of computation” we are influencing the evolution of ideas and technology: “What we make and what (we think) we are co-evolve together”. (p164).

The cognisphere is “multiple, not a split creature but a co-evolving and densely interconnected complex system”. (p.165)

My thoughts:

I’m still grappling with this one a bit. I find it hard to place the individual person / learner in this system. I suppose this is a process which began with the creation of different professions and specialisations. I rely on the knowledge of other people to live my life and can only survive through distribution of knowledge. I wouldn’t have the skills or knowledge to grow food, build a house, etc. But in the age of computation this development is continuing with the sharing of knowledge on the computer? Not sure whether I’m on the right track here…

Hayles, N.K. (1999). Toward embodied virtuality, chapter 1 of How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature and informatics. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. pp1-25